


Laugh, Laugh

by saltstreets



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Canonical Character Death, Developing Relationship, Episode Related, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 19:32:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18079571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets/pseuds/saltstreets
Summary: Three jokes Caleb Widogast makes.





	Laugh, Laugh

**Author's Note:**

> Another short fic that's only now getting posted! While catching up over the summer I was writing little snippets alongside episodes as character practice, and looking back over them I found a few that threaded nicely together. Spoilers up to episode 29.
> 
>  
> 
> Little heads up: not a particularly happy fic when all is said and done. [Title is with the Rolling Stones in mind.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNC1R_E9L4w)

 

 

Molly thinks that he has Caleb pretty well pinned down. Not to say that there isn’t definitely a huge pile of dark shit looming up from the man’s past that Molly doesn’t know about and might never know about, but he figures that he can guess more or less what to expect from Caleb. Those expectations are turned somewhat on their heads with Caleb’s easy acceptance of the suspicious scraps that are all Molly has in way of a personal history, but the real rise in Molly’s estimation of him comes later, when Fjord is enthusing to Yasha about the Invulnerable Vagrant.

“Pumat Sol is…how would you describe him? Unique?”

Caleb gets a thoughtful look on his face. “Well, not one of a kind…”

The remark gets a good reception. Beau cackles behind him and Jester giggles. Molly finds himself laughing out loud with complete honesty.

“Did- did you just tell a joke?” he says, ribbing but with an actual curl of delight.

“No,” Caleb says, blank voice and blank face but suddenly Molly sees it- an amused furrow in his eyebrows and it becomes plain that Caleb, sullen, standoffish Caleb, is teasing at his own expense.

“Ah, that’s a shame,” says Molly, and he’s pleased to see a tiny but decidedly extant smile that Caleb tries to hide by scratching at his beard. “It was a very good one.”

Caleb is definitely smiling now. And Molly isn’t mean; he just grins and turns away to let Caleb slither back out of the spotlight as Fjord continues planning their shopping trip.

Which isn’t the same as not taking the matter into account. Not at all. Perhaps a bit of a reassessment is in order. Caleb has been slowly crawling ever so slightly out of his shell but this is possibly the first time he’s played along with Molly. And Molly finds somewhat to his surprise that he’s interested in seeing it a little further.

 

 

 

 _Comedy_ is not a monolith. This Molly knows. Travelling with the carnival has taught him many things, not the least of which is that entertainment comes in a bouquet of variety, and _comedy_ within that bouquet can range from a stone-faced orc telling deadpan jokes to soft-crusted pies being flung every which way.

Caleb making the occasional snide comment or faintly smiling riff is something that, while it had been initially unexpected, suits him and his shabby coat and dirt-encrusted fingernails. So it takes Molly entirely off-guard when he starts in on the pie-throwing.

The Harvest Close festival is in full swing and Molly has just gained possession of his outrageous tapestry when he notices the rest of the group clustered by the Star Shot, or Eagle Fire, or whatever the little archery game is called, and trots over to join them. He arrives in time to hear Caleb say, in a tone that is just as self-important as the one he usually uses but somehow far more put-on than his typical bland way of making it clear he believes himself to be far and away the most intelligent person in the room, “Let me show my daughter how it is done.”

There’s only one person _my daughter_ can refer to, and sure enough Nott is struggling to keep a wide shit-eating smirk off of the Halfling face she has adopted for the afternoon as she nods eagerly, every inch the role of the adoring daughter.

Next to her Jester is openly laughing and Fjord is grinning in an unusually unguarded fashion, the chiselled stumps of his tusks on full display.

Caleb wiggles his fingers ridiculously and draws an arrow with incompetent flourish before nocking it and drawing the bowstring, his elbow a chicken wing and his shoulders a wooden kitchen chair. He looks utterly ludicrous.

There’s no other word for it. Caleb is _clowning._

Molly can respect a decent bit of physical comedy and Caleb, with his ratty clothes and dead serious expression as he lets fly a gloriously poor shot, is putting on a good show.

Huh.

After Nott has won every prize on offer Caleb ruffles her hair fondly. “And so the pupil has become the master,” he says with good humour. “Clearly I can teach you no more archery.”

 

 

 

He brings it up later, while they are waiting for their go at the Victory Pit. “You’re quite funny, Mr. Caleb.” Molly smiles with all his teeth, knowing that it’s not a sight for the faint of heart. “When you want to be.”

Caleb looks over and meets Molly’s red gaze. He shrugs. “Oh, I am not sure. I think I am often ridiculous, but if I am amusing I usually don’t know anything about it.” He pauses, and -yes!- a glimmer of a smirk or maybe even a proper smile flits over his face. “But thank you for the compliment all the same.”

There is the distinct sound of steel ringing off of stone and then a sickening squelch from the stadium before the roar of the crowd swells to cover the sounds of the first fight raging. It feels oddly appropriate.

“Oh no, thank _you,”_ says Molly, shifting in perhaps a tad closer that he needs to just to see Caleb’s eyes narrow slightly. Caleb doesn’t lean back however, and doesn’t blink in a way that can only be intentional. It’s almost like a dare, and oh but isn’t that just excellent. There really is more under that filthy coat and scraggly beard than a just a heaping of painful secrets.

Molly winks at him, and then sweeps off to heckle Beau while she does her complicated series of warm-up stretches. He thinks he can feel Caleb’s eyes on him as he goes. He doesn’t glance back to check, but he thinks he knows anyways.

 

 

 

Another form of humour that Molly is intimately aware of is gallows humour. It never came up much in the show, because for the most part people who attended the circus were trying to escape their troubles and had preferred light-heartedness and graceful displays of acrobatics over grim reminders. No matter how many gags those reminders had been couched in. But gallows humour had certainly been alive and well behind the scenes at the big tent. It’s difficult to travel with a carnival and not learn how to grow fond of poking your demons with a stick from time to time. It’s even more difficult to drag yourself out of your own grave and live with that knowledge without being able to see the funny side of the whole affair. So yeah, Molly knows gallows humour.

Caleb knows gallows humour as well. Caleb has spent a lot of time trapped inside his own head. He’s well acquainted with his own capacity for instability and sometimes it’s easier to try and laugh at it than it is to have another ten year breakdown. Sometimes. Even though he isn’t really the laughing sort anymore.

“You shouldn’t have killed my cat,” he says to the charred, twisted remains of what a few crucial fiery seconds ago had been Lorenzo, one hand still outstretched in the fury and agony of death, now just a blackened claw. Molly isn’t there this time to appreciate the line, but then again, it’s not really that funny after all.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For your convenience:  
> Not one of a kind: [Ep 14 2:27:08](https://youtu.be/seY-M0i78F4?list=PL7atuZxmT955Cw-fFS-_3IQvaCpQgDzWA&t=8825)  
> Eagle Shot: [Ep 17 1:07:55](https://youtu.be/RNOyGusWh3s?list=PL7atuZxmT955Cw-fFS-_3IQvaCpQgDzWA&t=4075)  
> Killed my cat: [Ep 29 4:02:06](https://youtu.be/piLXDzZuAKk?list=PL7atuZxmT955Cw-fFS-_3IQvaCpQgDzWA&t=14526)


End file.
